Rain

There are three people in this world who call me Rain. I do not much like nicknames and moreover, I find they have never suited me. As a child, I hated my name. I thought it too long and too big and just too much…. everything!!! I was such a tiny thing and this name, Lorraine Toussaint, dwarfed me. And to make matters worse, my full name is Lorraine Patricia Marigold Isadora Toussaint. What was my mother thinking!! It has taken me some 40+ years to embody just two of those names, and so being addressed by any other, is not only alien, it is redundant. I do not need any more names! Yet the three friends who call me Rain are beloved and their special handle and handling of me is so very…. lovely.

El Nino is here, I think. The rain arrived this morning with all the fervor and the bluster of a nor’easter. Here in the canyon the winds whipping and howling up a storm are ricking havoc with my poor plants. I can no longer see the mountains nor the sea beyond. The looming fog, lumbering past my windows and doors, muffles the relentless downpour drumming on my roof, overflowing the gutters high above, bitch slapping the ground three stories below. A car speeds by, fan flaring the runoff like angry gills in its wake, splashing and sluicing its way down the hill. My ylang ylang tree desperately bangs on the kitchen window, begging to come in. Surrendered I give in to this cacophonous symphony making liquid love to my soul.

I love the Rain.

This is as close as we get to a winter, in Southern California. And this year, we’re told to expect rain, lots of rain. Yeah….What a perfect time to go in. The rain calls us to stop and listen and reflect. This is a perfect day to make soup.

There are many things, which for me, go beyond lovely and must be named in a language beyond that which my tongue can utter. Rain….Its name an echo only my soul can sound. And this morning, like standing beneath ancient church bells resounding through my bones, this rain proclaims its naming, bringing me to my knees….the awe of it. My name is Rain.